The present invention relates to a process of forming usable food products having improved nutritive properties from poultry waste such as feathers and offal.
The production of food or feed products from various by-products of food rendering operations is a highly desirable objective since the commerical usefulness of these by-products generally determines whether or not the food rendering operation as a whole is economically viable. This has been especially true in the poultry rendering industry where extensive amounts of by-products or waste materials such as feathers and offal are available for further processing. Accordingly, various techniques have been proposed by the art for further processing of these waste materials to convert them to a more usable form. The techniques proposed include that set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 2,702,245 wherein steam treatment of the feathers is for a period of 1-11/2 hours, with agitation to convert the feathers into a high protein feed product. An alternative technique is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,272,632 wherein poultry waste such as offal, blood, and feathers are converted into a nutritious product by cooking of these materials in hot oil at a temperature sufficient to dehydrate the feathers as well as quickly cook these materials thereby yielding a more desirable food or feed product. U.S. Pat. No. 3,071,468 describes a process for the conversion of poultry offal into a usable food product wherein autolytic action in the offal is induced by maintaining the temperature of the offal within a specific temperature range for a period of time sufficient to convert the offal into a food stuff. Any of these techniques, while presenting the possibility of producing usable food products from poultry waste or by-products, nevertheless, represent processes of the type that usually can only be done efficiently on a batch or non-continuous basis thereby reducing the overall efficiency of the process. Also the use of hot oil alters the characteristics of the final product and enzymatic hydrolysis does not proceed rapidly enough to provide an efficient means of converting the waste material.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a process for the production of usable food products from poultry by-products or waste materials such as feathers, blood or offal.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a process for production of usable materials from poultry by-products wherein a high degree of efficiency is maintained and a product of high nutritive properties is also obtained.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a process for the specific conversion of poultry by-products such as feathers into highly nutritious form wherein conversion can be done on a semi-continuous basis either separately or in conjunction with conversion of poultry offal.